<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>I yield by SilentProtagonist000</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851816">I yield</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentProtagonist000/pseuds/SilentProtagonist000'>SilentProtagonist000</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azure Moon ending with the non-Azure Moon Sylvix paired ending, Dimitri is trying his best, Explicit Sexual Content, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentioned Glenn Fraldarius, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, if you're here for the porn you're in for a bad time, no beta we die like Glenn, oops! all angst!, platonic sylgrid, the smut is an afterthought</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:47:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,704</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentProtagonist000/pseuds/SilentProtagonist000</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sylvain, I swear to you that I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” Dimitri said, exasperated. “Yes, it’s true, we’re married and Byleth is with child, but I don’t see how—”</p><p>“The love of my life is dead,” Sylvain wailed. “Every time I see the two of you, it reminds me of the fact that I should’ve been out there with him, wherever he was! Wherever he was when he died! That I should have been choking on my own goddess-damned blood next to him! I was supposed to die with Felix, Dimitri!”<br/>--<br/>Years later, a sword that was thought to have belonged to Felix arrived on Sylvain's doorstep.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I yield</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you want to support me, you can email me at silentprotagonist000@gmail.com. I take commissions! <a href="http://silentprotagonist000.tumblr.com">I'm also on tumblr! Come say hi!</a></p><p>time for your government-mandated Sylvix angst!!!! This is the Azure Moon ending for everybody except Sylvain and Felix because I want them to suffer and God has cursed me for my hubris</p><p>the themes in this fic are heavy-handed, it reeks, and it's un-beta'd. there is nothing of merit here. I've cheated all of you</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maria was the only Gautier maidservant Sylvain trusted.</p><p>Her hair, once wild chocolate locks, was now peppered with flecks of grey ash, but her dark eyes could still cut steel and Sylvain knew that the edge of her gaze, despite her years of service, hadn’t dulled. Her skin was the color of blonde roast coffee and even though she <em>said</em> she was Fódlanese, Sylvain made no comment on the warm Almyran accent budding at the periphery of her words. Maria was also the only female member of the Gautier household staff that he hadn’t slept with and the only member <em>period</em> that he hadn’t flirted with. In her younger years, she would have been a prime target for Sylvain’s ministrations, had she not regarded him with the venom of a diamondback viper each time he crossed her vision. From birth, Sylvain Jose Gautier was fearful of his own maidservant.</p><p>Maria took no prisoners and Sylvain simply adored her for it.</p><p>As Sylvain aged and Margrave Gautier found a shallow grave on the Gautier estate, Maria became more than the chief of servants; she became an advisor, a voice of stark reason to Sylvain’s (self-admitted) airhead. If he worked late into the night, quelling internal rebellions or mediating between House Galatea and the bandits in the valley, <em>again</em>, Maria would slide into his office with the dexterity of an assassin and present him with a cup of chamomile tea. Sometimes with a bit of bourbon, sometimes not. Sylvain swore that whenever he wept in his office, no matter how he muffled his sobs, a piping hot tea set would be at his door within minutes. Always, every time, a fifth of bourbon would be on the tray with it.</p><p>As Sylvain aged and he became Margrave Gautier, Maria became a cherished friend and the promised shallow grave of his own seemed less daunting.</p><p>It made sense, then, that Maria was with Sylvain when the messenger came.</p><p>Sylvain had been currying Maria’s opinions over whether or not it was wise to trade barley with the farmers on the Sreng border when a sharp knock interrupted their murmured argument over domestic and foreign prices. The sound of knuckles rapping with a tone of urgency against the broad door of the Margrave’s office startled Sylvain—he seldom had visitors these days. The last time he’d had a guest on business was when Felix—</p><p>“Shall I get the door, my Lord?” Maria asked curtly, as if she just hadn’t called him a <em>fat-lipped buffoon</em> for arguing against an embargo on foreign grains. All it took was a nod and Maria was on her feet, gliding towards the entrance with grace. She unlocked the interior bolt and swung open the double doors.</p><p>The messenger tumbled into Sylvain’s study on shaking knees like a newborn fawn as soon as the door gave way, leather armor soaked from rain and exertion. His eyes bloodshot and dark baggage beneath his eyes, as if he had walked a thousand miles without a moment of sleep to collapse with mud-laden boots on Sylvain’s estate floor. Clutched to his chest was a dirty bundle, a stained sheet, addled with filth and still being held as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Even as Maria dropped beside him and grasped his shoulders, the messenger did not speak—instead, he stared ahead, gaze blank and fixed on Sylvain.</p><p>He wore mercenary’s threads. Sylvain’s stomach found a home beneath his slippers.</p><p>Immediately, Sylvain was on his feet, but the messenger spoke querulously before he could get much further than his desk. “My Lord,” he choked, voice suggesting that every step of that thousand-mile journey had been spent in tears. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>With unsteady hands, the mercenary unwrapped the cloth in his hands.</p><p>A glimpse of tempered steel. A sword, the finest cut in Faerghus, well oiled and cared for even in spite of the thunderstorm raging outside, the hilt finely crafted and ornate and beautiful. Familiar.</p><p>Sylvain <em>screamed</em>.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>“It’s a nice blade,” Sylvain commented from Felix’s bed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix turned the sword around in his hands, inspecting it with the practiced gaze of a man who quite literally never left the training grounds. He didn’t look at Sylvain. “Shouldn’t you be studying?” he asked, pointed as his weapon.</em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain’s eyes darted to the faith magic worksheet their professor had assigned for the week—the spell du jor was </em>Aura<em>, or maybe </em>Nosferatu<em>, but he couldn’t remember with any clarity anyhow because he was in Felix’s room, on Felix’s bed, with Felix sitting at his desk five feet away with his hair down. </em></p><p>
  <em>“I am,” Sylvain said, letting himself marvel at how the soft indigo waterfall of Felix’s hair pooled on his shoulder as he tilted his head. It wasn’t a lie. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Gripping the sword’s hilt and pointing the blade skyward, Felix tilted his head to the other side as his focused stare climbed up the ricasso. Sylvain hadn’t been lying about the sword, either—it really was gorgeous, the pommel studded with lapis lazuli and the blade gleaming with a lethal tailor as if it had been born from the blacksmith’s forge an hour ago. The Crest of Fraldarius was painted into the grip in wispy white acrylic. Sylvain had almost asked Felix where he’d gotten it when the courier arrived with the sword wrapped in a smart tanned hide case with velvet trimmings that afternoon, but Felix’s lukewarm reception told him everything he needed to know.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Early birthday gift?” Sylvain asked, mindlessly thumbing through the white magic spell book at his knee. The Pegasus Moon was a week away, after all. Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius wasn’t such an awful father that he would forget his son’s birthday. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s the Guardian Moon still,” Felix grumbled. “He’s currying my favor for something, no doubt.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain shrugged. Rodrigue was a good man, but noble fathers were all the same. “For what, do you think?” he inquired. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Fuck if I know,” Felix said. Sylvain watched him sheathe the sword in its scabbard in one fluid motion, a simple task made so artful that Sylvain’s breath caught with the edge of the blade. “Could be anything. Mingling with diplomats. Going on a suicide mission. A betrothal to some Alliance hussy.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hey now,” Sylvain teased. “You’d be chomping at the bit for a suicide mission.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Especially if it got me out of studying faith,” Felix said. He sighed and turned back to his desk, placing the sword beside him. He swept his hair into a loose bun with the hair tie around his wrist, exposing a sliver of the pale column of his neck. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix might as well have been naked. </em>
</p><p><em>“So,” Sylvain said by way of distraction, knowing that if he didn’t speak he’d stare all night. “Are you going to use the bribe blade or what? Because if you don’t want it, I’ll take it.” And Felix might as well have been </em>very<em> naked, because the thought of Fraldarius steel at his hip in the heat of battle was obscenely erotic. </em></p><p>
  <em>Whipping his head around to glare at Sylvain, Felix spat, “Of course I’m going to use it, you dunce. It’s Fraldarius steel. Have you ever cut someone with Fraldarius steel, Sylvain?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“All right, all right,” Sylvain said, secretly pleased Felix had taken the bait. “I know, best blacksmiths in Faerghus—”</em>
</p><p><em>“</em>Fódlan, <em>Sylvain.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“—I was just curious, no need to slit my throat for it.” For a minute, Sylvain thought about Felix slicing through his Adam’s apple with that sword and he became moderately dizzy from the rush. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Enough cheek from you and I will,” Felix promised, his threat empty but still welcome nonetheless. Felix returned to his reading, his spitfire promptly turning the conversation to cinders. Sylvain allowed it, begrudgingly choosing to delve back into his incantation practice for Aura or Nosferatu or whatever. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Out of the corner of his eye, though, Sylvain still found himself glancing at the lapis lazuli on the sword’s pommel, blue as the oceans of north Gautier, blue as cobalt mines, blue as Felix’s hair, silken and smelling of angelica even from where he was sitting. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It’s a nice sword. </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Ten years and the lapis dulled.</p><p>Everything about the sword dulled now, from the divots of the fuller to the blunted edge of the blade. Even in the low firelight of his quarters, Sylvain noticed the scrapes from a whetstone crowded along the seams of the steel, products of years of heavy-handed care.</p><p>Sylvain ran his fingernails along them. For a moment, he wondered how many men this blade has killed. He wondered who the last person was that it killed before it was never used again.</p><p>Sylvain wasn’t an ungracious host, even to Death itself—he made sure Maria put the messenger in his finest guest rooms with the rosiest zinfandel and with the most buxom escorts. It was only fair, he felt, to pay homage to the man that ended Sylvain’s purpose for living with a stained bundle of bedroll sheets.</p><p>Now, Sylvain realized as he sat in the privacy his room, robust fire crackling in his fireplace, steel from the finest blacksmiths in Faerghus in his hands, Sylvain permitted himself to crack.</p><p>How many weeks had gone by? he wondered. Had the messenger taken his leave yet? Were the dishes that piled outside of his room, hardly touched, rotting like war corpses or had the kitchen staff whisked them away? When was the last time he’d taken a bath?</p><p>Sylvain found he didn’t care. The only feeling he knew now was nothing. He was numb, from the root of his viscera to the shadow of stubble on his cheeks. He didn’t feel hunger nor hygiene nor the passage of time.</p><p>Only the weight of the sword in his hands.</p><p>“Flames, Sylvain, you need to shave.”</p><p>Ingrid’s voice felt like a poltergeist, the patron saint of dead Fraldarius men. He hadn’t heard her speak since the last Gautier-Galatea summit about the bandit lords. The memory of her, an old friend with old demons, rattled the rafters in his head.</p><p>And for a moment, he thought she was a ghost indeed—Ingrid materialized in front of him, her haystack blonde an unwelcome beacon in the darkness. Sylvain watched as she sat down in the plush chair across from him.</p><p>Ingrid’s expression was not one of pity. Sylvain had enough of those from his wait staff, from the messenger who brought him into terminal decline, from the plaintive tones of condolences letters from minor Gautiean lords. Instead, she was undecipherable, her ivy green eyes <em>understanding. </em></p><p>There she was, Ingrid, patron saint of dead Fraldarius men.</p><p>“Why are you here?” Sylvain asked, his voice so hoarse from disuse that he almost had to cough to clear the dust from his alveoli.</p><p>“Maria wrote me,” Ingrid replied.</p><p>Sylvain winced. He should have expected this—he’d scarcely seen Maria since the messenger had arrived, her profile lingering on his periphery only long enough to deposit bergamot tea and grits at his threshold. She’d done much of the same when the old Margrave Gautier had met his end.</p><p>Until she’d written <em>Felix</em>—</p><p>This time, Sylvain did cough.</p><p>“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like complete shit,” Ingrid said. “You stink and that beard does not suit you.”</p><p>“I’m flattered,” Sylvain said, his smile wraithlike. Just an upturn of the corners of his mouth felt like the hardest thing he had ever done. “But you didn’t answer my question.”</p><p>Ingrid unfastened her breastplate and discarded it at the foot of the ottoman in front of her. Unburdened, she leaned forward, elbows resting on her thighs as she clasped her hands together. “Why do you think?” she probed. “Why do you think Maria wrote me before anybody else?”</p><p><em>She’s come to canonize me,</em> Sylvain thought, the ridiculousness of the notion giving rise to a chuckle—hollow, unhinged, on the brink of spiraling into a mad howl of a berserker. The laugh did not get a rise out of Ingrid; she remained where she sat, gaze fixed.</p><p>Sylvain found his bearings. “Because you get it,” he said by way of an answer.</p><p>For a moment, he was fifteen again and sitting on the floor of the Galatea estate, Ingrid’s gaunt face pressed against his chest, her grip on his shirt unraveling the seams, despite her sobbing having died down weeks before.</p><p>Inexplicably, Ingrid’s expression softened. “Yeah,” she whispered.</p><p>Sylvain decided to place the sword on the coffee table before him. Blearily, he looked down on his palms—raw and ruddy from untold hours of mourning on Fraldarius steel.</p><p>“It’s been three weeks, Sylvain,” Ingrid murmured and Sylvain wondered if this is how she spoke to her Pegasai. “You need to at least get cleaned up.”</p><p>“Why?” Sylvain asked. “What’s the point? Who do I need to look good for?” He laughed again and this time, there was a promise of an assassin’s poison in it. “Felix Hugo Fraldarius?” The poison was Felix’s name and Sylvain wished it would kill him already.</p><p>“Because you’re Margrave Gautier and you have a duty to your people,” Ingrid said, tone sharp but still thermal underneath the bite. “And any Margrave worth his salt will at least make a public appearance every once in a while or risk his head.”</p><p>Briefly, Sylvain considered telling Ingrid to get back on her Pegasus and fuck right back off to Galatea territory—that he didn’t give a damn about the maize farmers straddling Sreng, that she wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t <em>understand, not in the damn slightest</em>—but she did because Ingrid had lost a Fraldarius. She lost one that made her pale and hungry and willing to walk fearlessly into battle knowing that there was always a chance she would join <em>him</em> in defeat.</p><p>For once, in the face of their differences, Sylvain realized that he and Ingrid were the same.</p><p>“Not worth salt,” Sylvain said vaguely, but stood up anyway. “I’ll call Maria.”</p><p>It took an hour to look presentable, but Ingrid was right about something—</p><p>Facial hair did not suit him.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>“You know, I could probably shave you with this blade,” Felix told Sylvain at the training grounds once.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unwitting, Sylvain brought his hand up to his chin and was met with the graze of stubble there. Over a week of marching to Ailell and lack of access to a shaving kit had made its mark; Sylvain didn’t mind it much, they were at war and creature comforts were a postscript. </em>
</p><p><em>However, the deepening of Felix’s everlasting scowl upon Sylvain’s return to Garreg Mach showed that </em>he <em>very much minded it. </em></p><p>
  <em>“You really hate it that much?” Sylvain wondered. “I haven’t had a chance to go to the sauna since we came back. Anyway, I think it’s fine.”</em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>“It’s a shame your opinion is worth the price of a rusted bow.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain dramatically clutched at his chest. “Ouch, Fe,” he whined. </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Felix glowered at him; as always, Felix’s snippy countenance had the opposite of its intended effect on Sylvain. Imperceptibly, his toes curled in his boots. “I’m upping the ante,” Felix wagered. “If I win this next bout, you shave.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain made a show of rolling his eyes as he reached out to catch the training lance Felix tossed at him. “Fine, and if I win I won’t shave.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Felix snorted. “At least pick a different bet,” he said. “That’s boring.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s a shame your opinion is worth the price of—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain didn’t have time to finish his retort because Felix advanced upon at him with a fluid swing of the false edge of his training sword. Luckily for Sylvain, he’d fought Felix a thousand times and could parry his blows in his sleep. </em>
  
</p><p><em>That fact didn’t make it all the more tempting to lose on purpose to Felix, though—and Sylvain had learned from enough scolding whips from the pommel of Felix’s swords and sputtered insistences to “</em>fight me like you mean it, dammit” <em>to at least put up some semblance of a struggle. Against Felix, though, victory meant nothing to Sylvain, just so as long as he ended up on the </em>right<em> end of Felix’s weapon. </em></p><p>
  <em>Their sparring match on this day ended much the same as they usually did—Sylvain prone on the dusty floor of the training grounds, Felix’s blade beneath his chin. And there it was, the right end of Felix’s blade, a sultry suggestion of death at its tip. The blood rushed in Sylvain’s ears with the thrumming intensity of a horse’s hooves. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain couldn’t stop the smile that crept into his face, even if he’d wanted to. “I yield,” he said. From the sparkling amber that reflected in Felix’s irises, pupils fat with exertion, Sylvain meant more than just in battle. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Afterwards, they went to the sauna and Sylvain shaved his stubble as compelled. As a joke, he’d taken Felix’s bribe blade to his sideburns and laughed as Felix grappled for his prized weapon in a flurry of shaving cream and aromatherapy steam. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Once Sylvain was clean-shaven, Sylvain felt hands against his jawline—cautious hands, weathered from wartime and the hilt of his lapis lazuli Fraldarius steel sword, and it was a balm that soothed a wound Sylvain didn’t even know he had. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You look better like this,” Felix said. Sylvain wasn’t sure if Felix had been speaking to him or to himself. The airy, frivolous look in Felix’s normally quarrystone eyes gave Sylvain the answer he wanted. </em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain had thought about telling him then. They were due to march on Fhirdiad within a fortnight and Sylvain was uncertain if they’d make it out of that particular battle alive. There was too much at stake—the future of Faerghus, the future of </em>Dimitri<em>, and the specter of Glenn Fraldarius that haunted them both and Ingrid Brandl Galatea. If there was ever a time to tell Felix how he felt, it was then, his face caressed in Felix’s wonderful hands in the Garreg Mach sauna. That he’d move the mountains of Gautier and Sreng into the backyard of the Fraldarius estate of Felix asked. That he’d learn necromancy just to bring Glenn back. That he’d yield, time and time again, if it meant he could worship at Felix’s feet for the rest of his life.</em></p><p>
  <em>He didn’t tell him. Sylvain was clean-shaven, in love, and a coward. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>They survived Fhirdiad. Sylvain grew back his stubble, to Felix’s chagrin.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He didn’t tell him then, either.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>A week later, His Majesty Dimitri Alexandre Bladdiyd was in Sylvain’s parlor.</p><p>“Dedue is covering for me,” was Dimitri’s immediate excuse as he watched Sylvain’s face transform from one of befuddlement to pure anger.</p><p>“<em>Dedue </em>is <em>covering </em>for <em>you,</em>” Sylvain declared, the cholera in his voice acerbic. This was ridiculous—the king of Fódlan, responsible firsthand for the death of the Flame Emperor, usher of an era of renewed peace and prosperity in a continent run ragged by the flames of war—was in his parlor, standing there in his stupid cloak, looking very sheepish.</p><p>Dimitri blew out a sigh. The firelight was near dwarfed by the reams of sunlight casting low shadows onto the chaise lounge Dimitri was sitting on, tendrils of afternoon sneaking in through the panes. Sylvain had finally begun to keep track of time again, albeit begrudgingly.</p><p>“I know how this looks,” Dimitri began, but Sylvain was faster.</p><p>“Yeah, it looks like something, Your Majesty,” Sylvain said briskly. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”</p><p>Dimitri’s face, scarred and eternally beleaguered by his eye patch, nevertheless softened at the bite in Sylvain’s words. “Sylvain, please,” he uttered. “I’m not here as your king. I’m here as your friend.”</p><p>Sylvain felt equal parts relieved and <em>writhingly enraged </em>by that statement. The rightful king of the continent was here on personal business—as a companion and not a sovereign—but with him was saddled a burden of memories Sylvain hadn’t unearthed since Felix’s messenger collapsed at his office door. The last time he, Dimitri, and Ingrid had all been in a room together, it was at the monastery on the brink of war. The last time they had been in a room <em>happily</em> together, they were teenagers.</p><p>Dimitri was an apparition that with him brought baggage that besieged Sylvain, like the mountains south of Sreng, like fistfuls of cordillera earth in a backyard.</p><p>“My friend,” Sylvain said flatly. Unconsciously, his hand fell to the blade at his thigh. When he was nineteen, the thought of Fraldarius steel at his hip stirred him. Now, a ball and chain.</p><p>“Ingrid wrote me, before you ask,” Dimitri began. “I… I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, Sylvain. I wanted to be here with you. Felix was dear to me as well.”</p><p>Sylvain ground his teeth back and forth, the roots of his molars screaming with aching pain. “Was he?” he asked, tart like Brigit lime. Dimitri <em>cared</em> about Felix, certainly—the three of them and Ingrid all grew up together, sleeping in the same sunsoaked bedsheets and romping in the same poppy fields. Felix <em>was</em> dear to Dimitri. Sylvain didn’t doubt that.</p><p>The blade at Sylvain’s side throbbed like his teeth.</p><p>“More than you know, Sylvain,” Dimitri assured him. “Felix helped steer me on the right path. I could not have become who I am now without him.” The oceanic blue of Dimitri’s remaining eye—glowing with sincerity, with care and kindness—was so achingly, frustratingly <em>Dimitri</em> that Sylvain hated to admit that he believed him.</p><p>A familiar voice rose from the armchair behind Sylvain, near the entrance of the parlor. “Felix was dear to <em>both</em> of us, Sylvain.”</p><p>Before Sylvain could do much more than turn around and behold the shock of his second guest, powerful arms surrounded him and pulled him into a tight embrace. Seafoam green tresses tickled his clean-shaven cheek, sweet smelling—<em>not of angelica</em>—but of something less arresting. The press of a silken form against him that felt a little like coming to rest beneath an oak tree in a thunderstorm.</p><p>Byleth pulled away to look Sylvain in the eyes. His old professor was still as radiant as ever, her eyes kowtowing with the old, undying strength of a mercenary despite years of peacetime. She was still so small compared to Sylvain, but the strength of her grip on his arms spoke the truth that she could still break him in half if needed. The only reminder of the quiet life she’d been leading as the queen consort and archbishop was the swell of her belly and the softening of the edges of her face.</p><p>“Professor,” Sylvain breathed. “Beautiful as ever.” It was true—Sylvain hadn’t remembered her looking so incandescent at her baby shower several months prior. She had grown now, looking close to giving birth at any moment. A knot formed in Sylvain’s chest—Byleth was on the verge of motherhood and still, she’d ridden miles upon miles to be here. For <em>him</em>.</p><p>Byleth laughed, her voice pleasant chimes, just as it sounded in Sylvain’s memories. “There’s still a womanizer in you yet,” she chuckled.</p><p>Sylvain heard Dimitri laugh from the hearth—there was relief in the hearty reverb. “I’m glad you’re happy to see one of us, at least,” Dimitri said. “Sorry to bring reinforcements, I deemed it necessary.”</p><p>“Your throne, the <em>church,</em>” Sylvain started, but Byleth raised a hand in pause.</p><p>“Sylvain,” Byleth said. “Dedue is a capable ruler in our absence and Seteth has no issue playing archbishop for a while. It’s all mostly paperwork, anyhow.” She winked at him. “We’re here for you as long as you need us.”</p><p>There was a part of Sylvain that wanted to continue to be angry—to scold Dimitri, his <em>king for the Goddess’s sake</em>, for leaving his vassal in command of the entire continent so that he could pay his respects to a mourning friend and for making his heavily pregnant wife shirk her own duties to accompany him—but the nigh maternal warmth in Byleth’s eyes placated him.</p><p>“I’m being an ungrateful host,” he said. “Come. You’re in time for afternoon tea.”</p><p>Although he offered Byleth his arm and Dimitri trailed behind, the blade still ached at his thigh.</p><p>It ached so much that he felt it in his neck, just below his Adam’s apple, like the tip of a blade.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>After they recaptured Enbarr, with his lapis lazuli bribe blade against Sylvain’s neck, Felix kissed him.</em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain thought himself hallucinating. Manuela </em>had <em>loaded him up with magic-charged mugwort salve for the massive wound on his side he’d sustained in the fight and Flames forbid Sylvain had any tolerance for high-level magic, but the surprising softness of Felix’s mouth was a shock of cold water. The sensation of being kissed by Felix Hugo Fraldarius—the longing, the blood and Faerghean dirt beneath his fingernails—was utterly psychedelic. </em></p><p>
  <em>As if seeking purchase in reality, Sylvain gripped Felix’s slender shoulders, still unconvinced that he wasn’t having another wet dream about his best friend. But Felix’s flesh did not melt away and the pressure of his sword against Sylvain’s neck lessened until it clattered on the ground, forgotten. </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Felix’s hands snaked into Sylvain’s red tresses and pulled harshly, forcing Sylvain to pull back to look at him. What a vision Felix was—lips red and bitten from Sylvain’s overeager nibbles, pale cheeks flushed, breathing ragged as he regarded Sylvain with a tantalizing mix of lust and rage. </em>
</p><p><em>“Don’t you </em>ever,” <em>he hissed, yanking on Sylvain’s hair once more, “do that to me again. If you die, I’ll fucking kill you.”</em></p><p><em>Sylvain giggled—</em>giggled! like a giddy child—<em>at Felix’s nonsensical statement, his own thoughts incoherent, from the mugwort salve or perhaps not. “Is that why you put your blade on me just now?” he asked. “Kind of warped to threaten an injured man’s life.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Shut the fuck up,” Felix ordered and Sylvain yielded like Felix had his foot on his chest in the training ground. Felix plunged in for another kiss with renewed fervor, as if Sylvain really had died out there on the cobblestone streets of Enbarr. Then Sylvain was certain he was hallucinating, because Felix was untying the knot on Sylvain’s trousers and palming him through his smallclothes. Sylvain’s last remaining shred of lucidity dissolved into a moan that crumbled from his mouth like sandstone.</em>
  
</p><p><em>Sylvain could have said a thousand things in that moment—like </em>yes god Felix please keep going<em> or </em>why are you doing this now <em>or </em>I love you, so much, so goddamn much<em>—but instead, Sylvain’s brain helpfully supplied him with the statement “do you do this for anybody that almost dies?” Felix’s return glare was withering but heated and Sylvain shivered. </em></p><p>
  <em>“You idiot,” he snapped. “Only you.”</em>
</p><p>Only me. <em>Sylvain barely had any time to process those words, because Felix was pulling out his cock from his trousers and he was spilling with a sob over Felix’s gloved fist. He was almost embarrassed how quickly Felix had taken him apart, but he couldn’t fault himself—it was </em>Felix<em> and Sylvain was so in love with him. </em></p><p>
  <em>“It’s the mugwort,” Sylvain said by way of explanation as Felix wiped his hand on Sylvain’s infirmary bedsheets. “Hey, Manuela has to clean that up.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Probably not the first time for her,” Felix grumbled. Sylvain opened his mouth to reply, but anything he was going to say was interrupted by Felix sliding into bed next to him. Felix wrapped his arms around Sylvain’s shoulders and nestled into his chest, taking care to maneuver his hands around the bandaged wound on Sylvain’s side. Sylvain felt the gentle heave of Felix’s breath as he exhaled, as if he’d been holding his breath since he walked in the door.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You promised me, Sylvain,” Felix said, “that you wouldn’t die. Not like this.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain chuckled. “I’m not dead,” he assured Felix. “I’m not going anywhere, at least not for a while.” He paused, wondering if this was the right time to say it—but fuck it, he was still a little high from their victory at Enbarr. Sylvain knew Felix and he knew that now was not the time to tease him, so he instead opted to run his fingers through Felix’s indigo locks, loosening the pins and the hair tie. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I love you,” he said instead. “I love you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix made a strangled sound atop him, muffled by Sylvain’s shirt. “Go to sleep,” he commanded without any real authority.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Because Sylvain was loyal, he yielded.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Dimitri and Byleth overstayed their welcome.</p><p>It wasn’t like Sylvain was ungrateful—he really and truly was happy his old friends were there. Dimitri was a storm of confused emotions, but he was present, which to Sylvain was enough. Byleth approached him with more finesse and took him on long walks around the Gautier estate grounds on mournful afternoons. He was thankful for them. They were here, showing their support for Sylvain in a dark hour in the best way they could.</p><p>But they were <em>so fucking married</em> and it made Sylvain’s blood boil.</p><p>Every time he saw the swell of Byleth’s stomach, he grimaced. Whenever Dimitri tucked a lock of Byleth’s hair behind her ear and regarded her with Ailell’s warmth with his one good eye, he grit his teeth. Every morning, when he looked out his office window and saw them strolling hand in hand in the courtyard, he wanted to punch through the panes.</p><p>The bribe sword stayed at Sylvain’s flank, untouched. In the two weeks since Byleth and Dimitri had arrived, the ball and chain was ever heavier and its weight shot pain and anger through him like a sniper’s arrow.</p><p>The arrow cut through his resolve one afternoon when they were taking a late lunch—himself, Ingrid, Dimitri, and Byleth—and Dimitri had poured Byleth a fresh cup of Almyran pine needle tea with <em>a little too much </em>affection in his gaze and Byleth closed her hand around his with <em>a little too much </em>tenderness.</p><p>Sylvain snapped.</p><p>The crash of his fist against the table echoed off the cavernous walls of the grand Gautier dining room and made every present party jump with the butter dish. Byleth and Dimitri regarded Sylvain with wide-eyed shock—but Ingrid, Ingrid’s stare was steady, with the practiced look of the patron saint of dead Fraldarius men. She knew what was coming.</p><p>“Can you two <em>tone it the fuck down?</em>” Sylvain spat.</p><p>Dimitri blinked owlishly at him. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.</p><p>“You know what I’m talking about, Dimitri. Don’t play stupid,” Sylvain hissed. “All this lovey-dovey bullshit. I get it, you’re married to the love of your life. You knocked her up. You’re going to start a family with her. I’m sick of your gloating.”</p><p>In an instant, Byleth’s expression changed to one of muted empathy, a mirror of Ingrid’s. She understood now.</p><p>Dimitri, on the other hand, was characteristically daft. “What on earth has gotten into you, Sylvain?” he asked. “I’m just interacting with my wife, what’s wrong with that?”</p><p>“Dimitri—” Byleth started, as if to dislodge the foot from his mouth. In tandem, Ingrid reached across the table and closed her hand around Sylvain’s fist; “Sylvain—“ she said as well.</p><p>“That’s exactly what’s <em>fucking</em> wrong!” Sylvain shouted, shaking off Ingrid’s fist. He didn’t need her pity, didn’t need Byleth’s pity, and most certainly didn’t need Dimitri’s idiocy. “Are you blind?! You get to spend the rest of your life with her! You <em>get </em>to do that! You have the audacity to come to my home, parade your happy little life around, and act like you <em>care</em> about how I’m feeling?” Sylvain’s vision was bleary, his voice choked, and he willed himself with every ounce of strength in his body to not cry—but the sword at his side, the lapis lazuli sword, sapped his self-control like a vampire.</p><p>Still, Dimitri looked distraught. “Sylvain, I swear to you that I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he said, exasperated. “Yes, it’s true, we’re married and Byleth is with child, but I don’t see how—”</p><p>“Dimitri, stop talking,” Ingrid said, her tone a low warning, a trowel to smooth out the situation.</p><p>But Sylvain’s vision was only foggier. There was no regaining control. The sword ached, the ball and chain nearly sank him to the floor.</p><p>“<em>The love of my life is dead</em>,” Sylvain wailed. “Every time I see the two of you, it reminds me of the fact that I should’ve been out there with him, wherever he was! Wherever he was when he died! That I should have been choking on my own goddess-damned blood next to him! I was supposed to <em>die</em> with Felix, Dimitri!” His body heaved, but no bile came forth. He spoke again, his voice a little quieter this time. “I don’t—I don’t— I don’t get what you get.”</p><p>The silence in the dining room was so thick that it crystalized in the air around them. Dimitri sat wordlessly, mouth slightly ajar, and Byleth’s teal eyes focused intently on the surface of the table. Ingrid picked up her teacup and took a sip. The tremor in her hands betrayed her calm demeanor.</p><p>“Sylvain,” Dimitri said finally, cracking through. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”</p><p>“Your Majesty. Your Eminence.”</p><p>Sylvain felt like he hadn’t properly heard Maria’s voice in weeks—Sylvain knew she’d been keeping his distance because she was Maria and she knew what Sylvain needed—but there she was now, in the flesh, standing just shy of the threshold of the massive double doors that led into the foyer. Her hands were clasped in front of the apron on her dress, posture straight as sticks. Her arrival shattered any remaining crystals of angry silence that settled on Sylvain’s shoulders.</p><p>“Forgive me for speaking out of turn to the king and consort of this land,” Maria began, “but it is clear that your presence here is causing my Lord turmoil. As the head maidservant of the household, it is my role to ensure that my Lord’s home is comfortable for him. I must request that you depart at once.” She curtseyed deeply. “With the permission of my Lord, of course.”</p><p>If Maria had been anybody else, Sylvain would have reamed them—Dimitri was the <em>king</em> for the Goddess’s sake—but Sylvain was exhausted and Maria really and truly knew him. Her presence was the real smoothing trowel.</p><p>“You are not speaking impudently, Maria,” Dimitri said. “I think you are most certainly correct.” He rose from his seat. “I’ll prepare our mounts—”</p><p>“There is no need for you to trouble yourself, Your Majesty,” Maria interrupted. “They are saddled at the door and your belongings have been safely packed for your convenience.”</p><p>Dimitri again looked surprised, but Byleth’s face betrayed none of it, her expression the classic emotionlessness that so many knew as gospel on his old professor. Deep down, Sylvain was wondering if she’d been expecting this all along. With a deep breath, she stood up as well, hand on her belly as if to anchor herself.</p><p>“Thank you, Maria,” she said. Despite all that had just transpired, Byleth still ambled around the other side of the table to give Sylvain a kiss on the cheek. As she pulled away, her breath tickled against Sylvain’s ear as she whispered to him.</p><p>“No matter what,” she murmured, “we are here for you.”</p><p>Sylvain did not see them off—he let Maria guide them out of the dining room and he watched as their backs dissolved into the brickwork of his home. Only Dimitri spared him a backward glance, eye gravid with regret and sympathy. When Byleth tugged on the sleeve of his tunic, Dimitri reluctantly turned and followed her out.</p><p>Sylvain looked over at Ingrid. She took another sip of tea.</p><p>Sylvain saw that her eyes, too, were moist.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Felix disappeared once Dimitri took the throne.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When Sylvain woke up in the infirmary the next morning, Byleth was there with tears in her eyes. The Kingdom army had been looking for Felix since dawn, she told him. He wasn’t anywhere at the monastery, she told him. Did Sylvain know where he might have gone, she asked him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sylvain didn’t eat for two days.</em>
</p><p><em>On the third, a letter arrived for him—from his father, the old Margrave. The new Duke Fraldarius had dissolved House Fraldarius, he reported. Fraldarius territory was now unclaimed—now </em>free<em>. The Fraldarius estate was abandoned.</em></p><p>
  <em>Sylvain ate something that day. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the sixth day, when Manuela finally allowed him to get up and walk around the monastery grounds, Sylvain was intercepted in the greenhouse by a courier.</em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>“Letter for you from Duke Fraldarius,” the courier said, thrusting a letter in his hand, and Sylvain was certain the mugwort salve really was a hallucinogenic because the courier had just spoken gibberish and the wax seal on the back of the note was branded with the Major Crest of Fraldarius. Sylvain had never torn open a letter with such fervency before. </em>
  
</p><p><em>Felix explained that he was done with Crests, done with being a noble, utterly </em>done <em>with the burdens that came with it and that he had elected to become a mercenary instead. “If I am an anonymous hired blade,” Felix wrote in the letter, “then I don’t need to be Felix Hugo Fraldarius anymore.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix did not offer an apology in the letter for not telling Sylvain.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain didn’t care. He just needed to find a new location to move the Srengi mountains.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>If there was anything Sylvain hated, it was parties.</p><p>The anniversary of old Margrave Gautier’s death hit with the discordant din of the Harpstring Moon, because <em>of course</em> Felix had the audacity to die so close to Sylvain’s father. As was Gautian tradition, a grand ball was held in Sylvain’s estate to not only celebrate the life of the old Margrave, but to herald the date that Sylvain was sworn in as the new Margrave. Every year, it was the same—massive, decadent, and with hundreds of attendees that spilled onto Sylvain’s front lawn.</p><p>It was Sylvain’s first public appearance to the people of Gautier in over a month.</p><p>And Gods, Sylvain <em>hated </em>it, with everything he had.</p><p>He hated the smell of minor lords and Cavendish tobacco in musty pipes. He hated the carousing and the drunken breaths of escorts inevitably hired by some wayward invitee. He hated the poker games, the smoked meats, and the swirling, discordant matrimony of politics and hearsay that threatened to drown Sylvain in the ballroom of his own damn home.</p><p>This was another one of Ingrid’s doings, Sylvain knew as he took his ten thousandth sip of champagne that night. He remembered what she said to him over a month ago, when she first arrived at his hearth, reeking of Pegasus musk and dripping with unwarranted sympathy, about <em>no Margrave worth his salt</em> shirking his duties toward his people.</p><p>Sylvain cast his eyes upon his people there, tonight, all brazen and rowdy and cast in the low glare of a hundred candles’ firelight. Whispering, conspiring, spitting awful barbs like <em>bachelor</em> and <em>un-Gautian</em> and <em>Ser Galatea—</em></p><p><em>Not worth salt</em>, Sylvain thought vaguely.</p><p>The sword at his hip burned.</p><p>“My Lord!” Sylvain knew Count Itha’s voice anywhere—nasally, obnoxious, and already making Sylvain wish he were drunker than he actually were. He took another sip of champagne before he turned around with a tense smile gracing his face. Count Itha was there, all soft edges of a man who had never seen combat, beside his wife, pump and fanning herself fervently.</p><p>“Count Itha, a pleasure,” Sylvain said with the warmth of a man who only intended to placate this minor lord for access to Fraldarius territory. He took his third sip of champagne.</p><p>“I must say, my Lord, you have outdone yourself yet again,” Countess Itha said demurely behind her Pegasus feather fan. “Gautier events have not slackened with your father’s untimely passing last year.”</p><p>“My intention is to entertain my people, my lady,” Sylvain said. In a gesture of goodwill, he took the Countess’s hand and gave her a kiss. He pretended not to notice the taste of Cavendish tobacco and unwashed skin on his lips. Fourth sip.</p><p>“It is our honor to be here to celebrate the life of your father, my Lord,” said Count Itha. “He was truly an honorable man. He lived his life in the sacrifice of his people, with the Lance of Ruin at his side until he could wield it no longer. Truly a leader whose example should be followed.”</p><p>For a flash of a moment, Sylvain thought about rebutting—about how his father shut out Miklan, how his father’s acid slithered his way into Sylvain’s self-esteem—but he said nothing and instead continued that practiced smile he knew so well. “Indeed,” he agreed with no warmth in his tone. “I aspire to be as much of an inspiration to the people of Gautier, if not more.”</p><p>The alcohol was just barely hitting Sylvain when he noticed the contortion of the Count’s face—<em>that was the wrong thing to say</em>, Sylvain suddenly realized, the pang of regret hitting him like the Lance to his gut. He’d been out of practice for weeks, the game was lost on him.</p><p>“With all due respect, my Lord,” Count Itha said tersely, “seeing as you have been absent this last moon, that is a lofty goal of yours.”</p><p>Sylvain’s mood, already low, soured further. Sip number five—where was Ingrid, <em>where was Maria?</em> Sylvain was <em>drowning.</em></p><p>Countess Itha, always a lady, tried to intervene gently on Sylvain’s behalf. “My dear husband, spare our Margrave,” she said. “The anniversary of his father’s death must be a trying time for him, after all.”</p><p>“Indeed,” Count Itha continued on his wife’s behalf, somehow ignoring her entirely. “I’m certain that the Margrave Gautier is struggling, what with no heirs to retain the Gautier name should something so unfortunate happen to him.” The Count’s dead, judgmental eyes cut into him, and for the first time in his life, Sylvain wanted to use his Crest to strike a man dead in front of a thousand witnesses. He hadn’t pulled the Lance of Ruin from its case in his office in moons, but here he was, definitely not drunk and definitely not considering it.</p><p>Sylvain’s grip on his champagne glass whitened his knuckles. Sip six, seven, eight, nine. “Count, I will warn you—“</p><p>“My love!” the Countess interjected again before Sylvain could speak his peace. “You are too harsh. Ser Galatea has been here with our Margrave for weeks. I think he is already working on solving his imbroglio of no heirs.” She grinned openly at him and Sylvain could not, despite every effort she was making to save him from the play of the game, to show her gratitude.</p><p>It was true, Sylvain thought to himself, one hand on his <em>freshly shaven, at Ingrid’s (Felix’s) insistence</em> chin—Ingrid had been here for a while now. What of the bandits in her territory? Ingrid hadn’t mentioned it a single time. Instead, she slept in Sylvain’s bed, wrapping him in her arms, never uttering a word of the power struggles in her own land in favor of providing a platonic, placating presence to Sylvain. Sylvain knew—he’d done the same for Ingrid, years ago, until weeks had flown by and her eyes had become less swollen.</p><p>Sylvain’s glass was empty; he waved down a maidservant.</p><p>“Alas, Countess Itha,” he said. “I am in love. Nothing escapes your shrewd gaze.” Long sip—sip eleven.</p><p>A pleased gasp escaped the Countess as her rapid fanning resumed. “I knew it!” she said with a grin. “I am familiar with the doe-like gaze of a man in love. Ser Galatea is a lucky woman, my Lord.”</p><p>That seemed to be enough to disarm Count Itha, his demeanor relaxing as he nodded and took a strong pull from his glass. “My wife is well versed on these matters,” he said. “Congratulations, my Lord. I’d imagine you are—”</p><p>Sylvain was feeling bold—maybe it was the twelfth drink of champagne, but he didn’t care anymore. Whispering, conspiratorial barbs be damned—sip thirteen—</p><p>“We won’t be married,” Sylvain interrupted. “He’s dead.”</p><p>The Count and the Countess stood, stricken silent. The Countess’s fanning quickened, her motions nearly a blur. The Count blinked, fawning, gawking. “What?” the Count began.</p><p>Sylvain felt woozy. He closed his eyes.</p><p>When he opened them, he was at Ingrid’s standing table—she was talking to some landowner from the Tailtean Plains, looking thoroughly disinterested. Sylvain tapped Ingrid on the shoulder.</p><p>“Ingrid,” he said hastily. “What if we got married?”</p><p>It wouldn’t be so bad, Sylvain thought, brain definitely not addled by twenty-seven sips of champagne. Ingrid was unmarried, he was unmarried. People were expecting him to get married to a noblewoman anyway—<em>why not Ingrid? </em>They were close friends, they were both Faerghean Lords, they’d create babies with Crests which is what everybody wanted—</p><p>Ingrid turned around, her expression shifting into confusion. “What?” she said. Sylvain thought that she sounded like Count Itha and he snickered.</p><p>“Sylvain, how much have you had to drink?” she demanded.</p><p>“Listen to me for a minute, Ingrid,” Sylvain insisted. “You know how—how like—we are <em>both</em> in love with the Fraldarius sons—so obviously we would be a perfect match—”</p><p>Ingrid looked very alarmed out of nowhere, Sylvain realized, and he took his thirty-second sip of champagne. “You’re done,” she said abruptly. She placed her hand on his shoulder—Sylvain realized that he felt nothing. Thirty-seven. “We should get you back to your room.”</p><p>“And let all of my guests miss out on this? On the incredibly important news?” Sylvain slurred. “I think they ought to know, each and every one. It’s important! Important.” Sylvain felt woozy again, but he willed himself not to close his eyes this time.</p><p>Blearily, Sylvain watched Ingrid shoot an apologetic glance to the Tailtean officials before turning back to him. “Sylvain, this party was a bad idea and I’m sorry,” she said. “You weren’t ready for this. Let’s get you to bed—”</p><p>Sylvain could not contain his dizziness. He closed his eyes again.</p><p>Then, he was on top of a table, clanging a spoon (<em>how did he get that?</em>) to a wine glass (<em>and that</em>?). Every soul in the ballroom was looking at him, and Sylvain felt <em>so good</em> and he didn’t want this to end.</p><p>“Everybody!” he shouted. “I have excellent news! I am betrothed! To the greatest spirit in all of Fódlan!”</p><p>The applause and the pleasantly surprised gasps fueled his stupor, fueled the upright posture he’d managed to hold, even as he faintly felt Ingrid’s hands grappling for his slacks and the exasperated cries of <em>Sylvain!</em> and <em>get down!</em> and <em>stop this now!</em> He felt a second set of hands, maybe Maria, maybe Count Itha’s, maybe the Fraldarius blade at his side, tempered with the greatest steel by the greatest blacksmiths in the whole continent.</p><p>He ignored it all. They had to know. All of them.</p><p>“I want every citizen of Gautier to know,” he shouted, “that I am in love! That I am to be married! To Felix Hugo Fraldarius!”</p><p>The silence was lost on Sylvain; the dizziness hit him again with the force of an armored knight. He took a sip from his glass. Seventy-six.</p><p>All of a sudden, the floor seemed much closer than it was before.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>If there was anything Sylvain loved, it was parties.</em>
</p><p><em>It was the perfect opportunity for him to distance himself from his father, in the same ballroom where the old Margrave had subject thousands to his panache before. For him to keep up the old Gautier tradition of philandering and charming unsuspecting women. For him to bask in the revelry that was Cavendish tobacco smoke and invited escorts and the rumor mill. Of </em>bachelor <em>and </em>un-Gautian <em>and </em>that maidservant of his—</p><p>
  <em>“My Lord.” Maria’s voice was right next to Sylvain’s ear.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain nearly hit the ceiling. “Gods, Maria,” he swore. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“More champagne?” Maria offered the bottle to him. It looked good—an old Aegian white that Dimitri had obtained for him when Enbarr fell—but Sylvain knew better than to keep his wits at arms’ length. He shook his head. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll respectfully decline,” he said. “Report?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Maria lifted the lip of the bottle and nestled it back into her white towel. “All is peaceful, my Lord,” she said. “The security detail is keeping the crowds controlled.”</em>
</p><p><em>“Security detail?” Sylvain asked. He supposed that yes, maybe it </em>was<em> a good idea to have one of those at an event of this magnitude—but Maria took all the planning onto herself as the head of his household staff and the mystery of it intrigued him, from the supplier of the buffet cheese wheels to the men that armed his party battalions. </em></p><p>
  <em>“Mercenaries,” Maria said, voice even and bored, not betraying a single hint of intrigue. “I took the liberty of hiring the best band north of Garreg Mach.” She crooked her neck toward the balcony—curtains billowing, patio doors open to the crisp night air. “The leader is out there. He wishes to speak to you.”</em>
</p><p><em>Some part of Sylvain already knew, long before he made his way to the third floor balcony. Maria never showed emotion, but he </em>knew<em>. He knew long before the stars came into focus, long before the frigid air hit him and his breath came in frozen clouds like dragon’s breath. He knew long before he saw the sapphire tint of the lapis lazuli on the pommel of the mercenary leader’s sword, saw raven hair tied in a tight ponytail, saw familiar hands gripping the railing.</em></p><p><em>Sylvain tried to stay emotionless. </em>It’s been so long.<em> His heart hammered in his chest.</em></p><p>
  <em>His schema for interacting with Felix had long since expired, Sylvain realized, so he fell back on the comforting familiarity of the Gautier panache. “You ought to be careful,” he said. “There’s bound to be some suspicious figures out here.”</em>
  
</p><p><em>Finally, </em>finally<em>, Felix turned around to look at him with that biting amber of his. Sylvain felt giddy. He felt like he was in Manuela’s infirmary bed, freshly kissed and giggling.</em></p><p>
  <em>Felix frowned. “It’s my job to keep suspicious figures at bay, my Lord,” he said, “but it does seem that one slipped through.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain desperately wanted to say something—to demand an explanation about why he’d dissolved Fraldarius territory, about why he left—but his questions died on his tongue as Felix approached him and extended his hand toward Sylvain’s jaw. The ghost of Felix’s touch against the grating stubble on his cheek was a switch that flickered his eyes shut. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What did I tell you about not shaving, Sylvain?” Felix said tersely. Sylvain only hummed in response. Sylvain felt Felix pull his face down to his. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain yielded.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Ingrid left several days later.</p><p>Sylvain thought that it was probably wise for her to return home. She’d gotten word from her staff that the bandits in the valley had looted another village and she’d been here for too long, anyhow. People were starting to talk.</p><p>“People aren’t talking about <em>us</em>, Sylvain,” Ingrid tried to tell him gently as he watched her fold her clothes into the suitcase on Sylvain’s bed. Sylvain leaned against the doorframe, arms folded in front of him, his bones feeling heavy, ball and chain conspiring with gravity.</p><p>Ingrid was right, Sylvain knew. When he’d woken up the morning after his party, head throbbing and Ingrid regarding him with shame and doubt, <em>people started to talk. </em>About how the Margrave had gone insane, about how he wasn’t fit to lead anymore, about how he was in love with dead nobility and about how he’d never produce an heir with the Crest of Gautier, not anymore.</p><p>They were right, Sylvain decided. On all accounts.</p><p>“At least the minor lords won’t yap about us getting married,” Sylvain said with a shrug.</p><p>“<em>Sylvain</em>,” Ingrid said seriously as she clasped the suitcase shut. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t have to leave. We can get married. We can save face.” The pity in her eyes was overwhelming and Sylvain felt like the reverberation of hollow laughter—Ingrid now knew him as such a lost cause that even she was resorting to <em>sympathy </em>instead of <em>empathy. </em>“It doesn’t have to end like this.”</p><p><em>But it does</em>, Sylvain chose not to say. <em>It </em>does<em> have to end like this</em>, because how else should it? It didn’t end the way it should have, with Sylvain choking on his own blood next to Felix on the dirty cordillera earth. This—<em>this</em>—was the next best thing.</p><p>Ingrid hesitated. “I can’t promise that I understand,” she started to say.</p><p><em>But you do, </em>Sylvain once more chose not to say.</p><p>Unlike Dimitri and Byleth, Sylvain did see Ingrid off. He watched as she mounted her Pegasus, watched as she took flight, watched as she turned back one last time to gaze at the Gautier estate below her, emerald eyes mournful, echoes reminiscent of a tamed king and an old friend who looked at Sylvain with the same regret weeks ago.</p><p>Once he was certain the final ripples of Pegasus wings had disappeared into the heavens, Sylvain went inside.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>“Marry me, Fe.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain said it on a whim. He was swept up in the dreamlike state of Felix Hugo Fraldarius, a sultry apparition that hadn’t been summoned to his side for years, taken by the pearlescent waves of Felix’s dark navy locks, fanned out against his pillows and fisted betwixt his fingers. He was intoxicated by Felix’s moans, a fire roaring back to life from the embers of an infirmary bed at Garreg Mach moons and moons ago.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now, those lovely strands were braided, Sylvain’s lance-worn hands sweeping through Felix’s hair like it was gossamer. There was something about this moment—doing Felix’s hair in front of Sylvain’s vanity after a sleepless reunion, sunlight streaming through the windows of Sylvain’s bedchambers, wearing Sylvain’s nightshirt that bunched up at the wrists from how large it hung on Felix’s frame—that made Sylvain say it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the mirror, Sylvain saw Felix’s expression contort. His eyes fell. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain’s stomach found a home in his feet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Quickly, Sylvain busied his hands with tying the black satin ribbon at the base of the braid, not meeting Felix’s eyes in the mirror. “I don’t need an answer, you know.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sylvain,” Felix said, soft, very un-Felix-like. The way Felix said his name spoke in dusty volumes that Sylvain didn’t care to read.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In response, Sylvain skirted his hands from the top of the braid to the bottom, hand finally coming to rest on Felix’s shoulder. Was it always so gaunt? Had Felix lost weight? “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, defending himself from an attack he knew would never come. “But it’s different with you, Fe. It’s always been different. You’re not the skirts I chase at these damn annual ‘fuck the Margrave’ parties.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“That’s not—“ Felix tried to cut in.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain was faster. “I’ll do anything you want, Felix,” he murmured, desperation seeping into his tone like this crushing, aching loneliness was poison and Felix was the antidote. “I’ll announce I love you to the entire territory of Gautier. Fuck, of the whole of Fódlan. You can stay here; you don’t have to be a Fraldarius. You can be a Gautier, or Duke Gautier, or fucking Margrave Gautier too, I don’t care, I’ll—“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Cut it out, Sylvain!” Felix snapped. He whirled around in the chair, braid whipping with the lash of an equestrian’s crop. “Do you even know what you’re saying?! Stop spitting nonsense!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“—Felix, I am not done,” Sylvain grit out. “Listen, I know how much you hated the responsibility Rodrigue put on you, for your Crest and for Glenn. You can leave all of that behind! Gods, Felix, you’re out putting yourself in front of blades like your life doesn’t even matter!”</em>
</p><p><em>Felix stood up, the force of the movement clattering the chair to the ground. His fists, clenched hard at his sides, shook as he glared at Sylvain with venom. “</em>Shut up! <em>I order you to </em>shut up!<em>”</em></p><p><em>“—You can be a nobody, </em>here, <em>with </em>me,” <em>Sylvain shouted. He knew he sounded querulous, unsteady, fearful like the child at the bottom of the well that he was all those years ago. “You can be my </em>husband, <em>Felix, please. You can be my nobody! You don’t have to be some nobody sellsword to erase your name!” Just like at the bottom of that well, Sylvain felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, convinced he was screaming upwards at nothing and that he would die down here, suffocating in darkness.</em></p><p><em>“What the hell do you think I’m doing?!” Felix barked. “Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me what the best way to not be a fucking Fraldarius is? You’re sitting here in your fucking castle like the </em>fucking Crest-born noble that you are<em>, and you have the audacity to tell me that the way I’m choosing to live my life is wrong?” Felix narrowed his eyes and Sylvain felt as if he were shrinking underneath that barbed gaze. “How. Dare. You.”</em></p><p>
  
  <em>Sylvain had the wherewithal to fight back his tears just long enough to let Felix’s words sink in. He was right, wasn’t he? Sylvain really wasn’t in any place to judge—not with his own birthright. Not with Miklan’s blood on his hands. Not with the Crest of Gautier, haunting his veins and the Lance of Ruin sitting in a bed of velvet behind his desk.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The silence in the air between them was long. Felix was quivering now, eyes still shooting toxic arrows at Sylvain and Sylvain slowly, gradually realizing that he was a goddess-damned idiot. </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“I know,” Sylvain whispered finally. “I know, Fe. I just… I love you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The edges around Felix subsided somewhat, the tension in his shoulders relaxing and his fists loosening. “I know you do,” Felix said. “But I can’t stay. Not unless you do the same.” Felix reached out to him, fingers curling around his jaw. In spite of himself, Sylvain leaned into Felix’s touch, eyes closing with the promise of some semblance of peace. “Not unless you come with me.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain understood—he completely understood why Felix wouldn’t agree. Yet somehow, there was refusing to yield to the fact that Felix could not process his trauma without living each day with the promise of death at the bit of anonymous axes, just like Sylvain knew he couldn’t escape the bottom of the well. Couldn’t move the mountains. He was doomed here in Castle Gautier, bound by his birthright to a Crest and a Lance and a promise a thousand years older than he. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He could promise to understand. He did. </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>But he hated that he did. </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“I can’t,” Sylvain said. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>That warm hand was gone, replaced instead by the omen of frigid air. When Sylvain opened his eyes, that intoxicating amber met his once more; for the first time, Sylvain felt sober. “So understand,” Felix said. “Because I do.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unlike every other mercenary band that Maria had hired in the past, Sylvain did see Felix’s off. He watched from his study as Felix shouldered his mortal savant’s armor and sheathed all four swords at his sides, watched as Felix’s men clambered outside the main entrance to the Gautier estate, watched as Felix leaned into whisper to a man with a grizzled beard in mercenary’s raiment and pointed behind him, to the panes of Sylvain’s office. </em>
</p><p><em>A year later, the man with the grizzled beard would turn up at Sylvain’s doorstep, a dirty sheet in his hands and bloodshot in his eyes and </em>my Lord, I’m sorry<em> on his lips.</em></p><p>
  <em>And Sylvain would scream. </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Maria was the only Gautier maidservant Sylvain trusted.</p><p>So that was why, two weeks after Ingrid went back to Galatea, Sylvain had her review his first draft.</p><p>Maria was standing across from his desk—low dusk light from the windows seeping in with the suggestion of evening and highlighting the high cheekbones on Maria’s sunkissed face—and while Sylvain couldn’t see every single word Maria was reading, he could tell where she was at in the declaration based on her facial expressions.</p><p><em>It is with a heavy heart that I announce to you all—</em>a frown—<em>that effective on the first day of the Horsebow Moon</em>—an upward glance, first at the woodhewn calendar on Sylvain’s desk, then to Sylvain—<em>the territory of Gautier will be dissolved</em>—now a scowl, ever deepening—<em>and with it, House Gautier</em>—those coffee eyes, widening—</p><p>Maria was seven pages in when she finally lowered the paper in her hands as if tearing down a wall between with her fingertips alone, her nails digging half-moons into the paper, crumpling it slightly. As always, Maria’s hands were calm, without tremor—but the mistiness in her eyes betrayed the emotion she was usually so good at keeping under wraps.</p><p>“Careful, Maria,” Sylvain said. “Do keep the parchment crisp. I have to make sure it’s legible.”</p><p>“I can’t—” Maria started, but with the heavy yet staccato sigh that interrupted her, Sylvain knew she wasn’t talking about the paper. “I can’t stop you from doing this, can I?”</p><p>“From doing what?” Sylvain asked. “Liberating Gautier? No, I suppose not. You’re just a maidservant.” He bent his head low and picked up his writing quill, knowing that he might dissolve along with his land into the mist in Maria’s eyes if he looked back up at her. “If you’re worried about you and the rest of the staff, worry not. The castle is yours. All of you may stay here with your families. There’s ample room.”</p><p>“That isn’t what I’m talking about,” Maria said. “You know what I mean, My Lord.”</p><p>By her tone, Sylvain knew exactly what Maria meant. She’d seen his mount tied to the post outside the stables, the Lance of Ruin oiled and in its scabbard. She’d likely gone through the saddlebags at its side. She’d seen the stack of letters on his desk—one to Byleth, one to Dimitri, three to Ingrid, one to the ghost of Miklan. She was woebegone, her level voice a funeral dirge.</p><p>Maria knew Sylvain best and already, she was grieving.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Maria,” Sylvain said softly. Of everyone, Sylvain knew that he’d have to face Maria in person—everyone else could get away with a letter, delivered long after the fact.</p><p>Maria had to watch him go. That hurt Sylvain.</p><p>“I’m hurt,” admitted Maria. Sylvain finally had the courage to look up—and Maria was clutching the stacks of Sylvain’s manifesto to her chest and he saw that she was crying. The haze had turned to a rainstorm—and, from the times Sylvain was able to count Maria’s tears on one hand, it was a fusillade in a desert. “I’m hurt, Sylvain. I understand, but I am hurt.”</p><p>Sylvain could also count the times Maria had said his name outright. She called him <em>Sylvain</em> in a gentle tone when she knocked on his door to announce the old Margrave had died. She’d hummed <em>Sylvain</em> as she carded through his wet locks with her work-calloused hands after Miklan had pushed him down the well. She’d whispered <em>Sylvain</em> in his ear as he became boneless with grief in her arms, staunch and watchful as he held the lapis lazuli pommel in his hands.</p><p>This time, it was Sylvain’s turn to hold her as she wept. It wasn’t staying—it wasn’t a promise to stay—but it was the next best thing.</p><p>After what felt like an eternity, Maria pulled away, eyes puffy. “Sylvain,” she said again. “You are like a brother to me.”</p><p>Sylvain realized that if he were younger, more fresh, more ignorant, and less in love with his best friend, he would have made a joke about not <em>wanting</em> to be a brother, about how beautiful Maria was and how he wished she’d had a sister—but it was <em>Maria</em> and she was the only member of the Gautier maid staff that Sylvain had never slept with and had never wanted to sleep with. You didn’t sleep with siblings.</p><p>Sylvain’s stomach found a home in his feet.</p><p>“I wish I truly was,” Sylvain said.</p><p>Reaching up, Maria gripped Sylvain’s hand—his hand dwarfed hers, but still she squeezed with the force of someone knowing that she would have to eventually let go.</p><p>She did.</p><p>Sylvain’s horse was still tethered and packed in the stables.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>“You can have it, you know.” Felix’s voice roused sleepily from the bed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain glanced over from where he was sitting at Felix’s desk, the light from the sole candle in the room not giving even a whit to the shadows of Felix’s sword. It was nighttime at Garreg Mach, the chirps of cicadas outside heralding summer. Sylvain had been here for a while as Felix slept, examining the fine cut of the blade and the gleaming steel, yet untouched by a whetstone. Sylvain noticed that Felix’s eyes, still that startling buckeye brown, were observing him from where he was lying under his blankets.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh, really? Thanks,” Sylvain grinned and made a motion as if he were about to stand up and take the sword.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix’s scowl yanked him back down by the nape of his neck. “That’s not what I meant, idiot,” he said. “And put some damn clothes on.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Why?” Sylvain asked. “I’m coming back over there, aren’t I?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Despite the dim light, Sylvain could see that Felix was blushing. “I guess,” he mumbled.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It is a nice sword,” Sylvain commented with a delicate hand on the lapis pommel, as if he’s not said it a hundred times before—but it was true. Sylvain was used to lying to a lot of people; Felix wasn’t one of them. The Fraldarius bribe blade was smithed with Faergean virtuosity, crafted from the finest steel on the continent. Sylvain knew that too, as if Felix hadn’t said it a hundred times before too. The very nature of Felix was cyclical.</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain had seen this cycle countless times—the churning silence in Felix’s expression, divulging an uncomfortable revelation behind the convincing poisonous mask Felix showed to the world. “You’re thinking,” he mentioned.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix reacted accordingly—a bitter scowl that had no real venom to it and if it did, Sylvain was immune. “I was—hm.” Felix’s thought was occluded by something sinister that Sylvain couldn’t put his finger on. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Fe,” Sylvain murmured. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I was just thinking—if I die, you can have that sword,” Felix said wearily. “You seem to like it a lot.</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain smiled wryly. It did not reach his eyes. “A nice thought,” Sylvain chided, “but if I recall correctly, we have a plan to stay together until we die together.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Felix laughed. It did not reach his eyes. “A shame,” he replied. “You’ll be missing out on a very nice sword.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain placed the sword gently down on the surface of Felix’s desk, cupping the candle with one hand and blowing out the flame. As Felix’s room was once more plunged into darkness, Sylvain rose, approaching the bed. It didn’t take much grappling to sidle back under the sheets next to Felix, pressing against him. The thick wool blanket atop him notwithstanding, Sylvain suppressed a shiver. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Pulling Felix into his arms, Sylvain buried his nose into Felix’s hair, taking a deep breath. Angelica. Felix’s skin was corpse-cold. “You’re thinking,” he said again. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What if I die, Sylvain?” Felix mumbled, muzzled by his mouth against Sylvain’s bare chest. “What if I die and you’re not there? What if I leave you behind?”</em>
</p><p><em>“</em>Felix,”<em> Sylvain said, firmer this time. “What’s all this talk about death? I’m not going anywhere. </em>You’re<em> not going anywhere. No matter where you go, I follow.” He twirled a lock of Felix’s hair in his fingers, suffusing the air with the uncharacteristic tranquility of Felix’s soap. “To Fhirdiad, to Fraldarius, to the Srengi Mountains. To Hell. Wherever you fancy.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Fuck Sreng,” Felix sniffed. “Too cold.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain choked back a genuine laugh as he pulled the blanket tighter around their shoulders. Felix, still, was corpse-cold, bottom of the well cold. “Felix Hugo Fraldarius,” he said. “I die with you. I promise. Somehow. At your hands, if I must.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The taut wire of tension between them slackened as Felix huffed. “Very dramatic, to die from a lover’s blade,” he said. “How very Gautier of you.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“I live to please,” Sylvain said.</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>The ensuing silence was comforting—a wool winter blanket, a sole candle, Sylvain’s finger tracing glyphs on the pale exposed column of Felix’s neck. It reminded him that Felix was very much naked. Sylvain closed his eyes, feeling altogether dreamless and feather-light.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sylvain?” Felix said—maybe minutes, maybe hours later. Sylvain wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep or not.</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“Hm?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Do you promise?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Promise what?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You know what, idiot,” Felix grumbled. “We’re still dying together. Right?”</em>
</p><p><em>Sylvain flickered his eyes shut again. In this moment, Felix was nine years old once, whispering forbidden covenants into Sylvain’s sleep clothes on the eve of the Tragedy of Duscur, into the sepulture’s threads at Glenn Fraldarius’s funeral. He was scarcely ten, sobbing pleas into Sylvain’s wellwater clothing with Miklan lurking in the hallways with a haunting, malevolent ethos. Sylvain didn’t have a memory with Felix where he wasn’t promising him </em>something<em>—that he’d never leave Felix alone, that he wasn’t dying first, that they weren’t dying apart. </em></p><p>
  <em>He was devoted to Felix. Every oath was a ball and chain, but he felt dreamless and feather-light. He was bound to Felix in death as he was in life—and he had no qualms with that. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dying next to Felix would be an honor. Dying at his blade—it wouldn’t be suffocating on his blood on the earth next to him, but it would be the next best thing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sylvain smiled. “You have my word.”</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>The mountains of Sreng were too cold.</p><p>Sylvain shaved for the last time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ingrid: It doesn't have to end like this.</p><p>Me, sweat sticking my t-shirt to my sternum, breathing heavily, wanting to get this out of my WIPs: yes it does</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>